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submitted 1 day ago by shark_byte@lemmy.zip to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev

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ahh

~$ which cat

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[-] lokalhorst@feddit.org 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

If I just want to look at the file, is there a better way than cat foo.txt? I guess I can't just do < foo.txt

[-] dan@upvote.au 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Admittedly I still use cat for this.

This also works too, but it's more verbose:

echo "$(<foo.txt)"

It's mentioned in the Bash man pages:

The command substitution $(cat file) can be replaced by the equivalent but faster $(< file).

EDIT: I was just informed that simply <foo.txt works too.

[-] not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 day ago

how in the world is this not a useless use of echo and equivalent to <foo.txt

[-] dan@upvote.au 4 points 22 hours ago

OK, TIL you can just do <foo.txt. I didn't think that worked. Thanks!

[-] mote@lemmy.ca 20 points 1 day ago

So close! you have to do cat < foo.txt :-) (/s)

[-] TwilightKiddy@scribe.disroot.org 2 points 1 day ago

You can use less. There are also specialized ones for that purpose like bat.

this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2026

388 points (98.0% liked)

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